Quote:
Originally Posted by CCDMan
Buy a book and if it is crap, it is YOUR PROBLEM. There are reviews, there are samples, and if you are in a bookstore buying paper you can sit down and read a bit. There is no excuse for returning books unless they are physically defective (unreadable formatting, missing content and such)
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There are not always samples. (Amazon has them, but not every ebook seller does--and the samples may be in non-DRM'd formats when the actual book is Topaz.) There are not reviews of the *formatting* of ebooks, not in any coherent location.
Books received as gifts are not checked at the store. For that matter, when I go to the store to buy a book, I don't expect to need to flip through the pages to find out if the font is readable or the contents don't match the description--if it was mis-shelved in nonfic and was instead a novel, the bookstore erred in placement. Books advertised as Young Adult may contain content parents don't want their kids to have, which they don't discover until they read through them. A lot of stores object to people standing in the aisles and reading entire chapters at a time.
All that aside--books are no different from any other product. "It turns out I don't need this/already have one/don't have room for it" is all the explanation most stores need for returns; if it's in good condition, that's fine.
Ebooks should allow returns for
--bad formatting (missing punctuation, extra-wide margins, bad font/text size, OCR errors, lacks pictures included in paper version, Topaz, wrong metadata)
--file not usable with purchaser's software arrangement
--selected wrong filetype (for those that require 1 purchase per filetype)
--corrupt file
If the seller doesn't have previews, they should also allow returns for "started reading it and didn't like it." And "got this [coupon] as a gift; don't want it; exchange for different book please."
In a sane world, they'd allow "already have this in a different version/different publisher." Eventually, I think we'll see that--when enough ebook stores have open competition that customer goodwill becomes more important than the $3 profit from a single ebook.